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FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY 

JOHN M. CARMODY, Administrator 


WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION 

F. C. HARRINGTON, Commissioner 

FLORENCE KERR, Assistant Commissioner 
CARL WATSON, State Administrator 


Copyright 1940 

Hamilton County 

Good Government 
League 


SEP -9 1940 



THE 

—BEAUTIFUL 

———RIVER 



COMPILED BY 

WORKERS OF THE WRITERS’ PROGRAM OF THE 
WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION 
IN THE STATE OF OHIO 

SPONSORED BY 

THE OHIO STATE ARCHAEOLOGICAL 
AND HISTORICAL SOCIETY 
COLUMBUS 


O > > 


CO-SPONSORED BY 


THE HAMILTON COUNTY 
GOOD GOVERNMENT 
LEAGUE 


^75 


PUBLISHED BY 
THE WIESEN-HART PRESS 
CINCINNATI 


i 


COPTBIGHT DEPOSIT. 


PREFATORY NOTE 


T HE BEAUTIFUL RIVER is an episode in the 
life story of the Ohio River. It begins with the 
Ohio living quietly after the tumult of the 
great glacier. As men settle the Ohio Valley, the river 
moves the wheels on the boats and beside the mills. 
It shapes cities and gives adventure until the rail¬ 
roads come and its muddy and diseased waters flood 
the Valley. The little book ends with men trying to 
control the Ohio and make it again a useful and 
beautiful river. 

The Ohio unit of the Federal Writers’ Project, 
directed by Dr. Harlan H. Hatcher, began this story; 
it was continued and brought forth in the form of 
this little book by the Ohio Writers’ Project. Re¬ 
search for the manuscript came from the districts 
supervised by Robert M. Ross and Emerson Hansel. 
Helpful suggestions were contributed by officials of 
the Cincinnati Public Schools and of the Hamilton 
County Good Government League, represented by 
Judge John C. Dempsey. 

The text was designed for use in the upper ele¬ 
mentary and junior high school grades. The Ohio 
Writers’ Project hopes that the children, as well as 
their parents, will complete the book with some 
understanding of how the life of a river enters the 
lives of men beside it. 

HARRY GRAFF, State Supervisor 
The Ohio Writers’ Project 

























. 

















- 






































I 





























CONTEXTS 

FROM PITTSBURGH TO CAIRO 8 

* Off 

DOWN TO THE SEA IN BOATS 12 
SMOKE ON THE RIVER 18 
BALES AND BARRELS 23 
RACING PALACES 27 
HIGH WATER, LOW WATER 31 
A THOUSAND MILES OF HIGHW AY 36 


COVER PHOTOGRAPH 
BY COURTESY OF 
PAUL BRIOL 


THE VALLEY 









FROM PITTSBURGH TO CAIRO 



IHE Ohio,” George Washington wrote in his diary in 1770, “is a 


remarkably crooked river.” “The most beautiful river on earth,” 


added Thomas Jefferson. 

Although it has lost some of its beauty, the Ohio River is majestic 
as it twists and turns south and west in great curves a thousand miles 
from Pittsburgh to Cairo, Illinois. From Pittsburgh down past West 
Virginia on one side of the river and Ohio on the other, it flows be¬ 
tween hills. Sometimes they roll down to the riverside, but usually 
they are back a little and the shore is low. Near Cincinnati the Ohio 
lies in a valley of farms and quiet towns squeezed between the river 
and the hills. Here orchards and garden patches and little fields of 
corn and tobacco run down to the water’s edge, and back gates often 
open onto a river landing. 

The Ohio is not an old river. Geologists, who know about soils and 
stones and rivers, say that its age is about 35 thousand years, which is 
young as rivers go. The land between the Rocky Mountains and the 
Appalachian Mountains was once covered with water, and the Gulf 
of Mexico reached all the way to the Great Lakes. Over a long period 
of time the land rose slowly above the water, and the water ran off to 
its present channel. 

Then the glaciers came. They were thick sheets of ice moving 
heavily over the land. They ground up hills and rocks and soil as 
they shoved onward. Gradually the climate became warmer, and the 
glaciers melted backward. What is left of them is now far north of 
this country. 

Most of the streams in the Ohio Valley had flowed northward. The 
glaciers made them run south and west. As the glaciers melted, their 
water broke down the land between several old streams, which became 
one wide river. This new stream was the Ohio. 

So far as we know, the first people on the river were the mound 
builders. Hundreds of years ago they lived throughout the Ohio Val¬ 
ley. They piled up mounds of earth and stones. Some of these they 
used as burial places; others they used as forts; still others they used 
for ceremonial purposes. Although some of the mounds can still be 
seen along the river, most of them were plowed up a long time ago 


8 


The Beautiful River 


by farmers, or disappeared when people built towns and cities on 
them. Much of what is now the downtown district of Cincinnati 
used to be covered with earthworks. Mound Street has its name because 
a high mound once stood near what is now the corner of Fifth and 
Mound Streets. 

This mysterious people probably traveled on the Ohio River as 
far as it would take them on trips into the West. Some of the weapons 
and ornaments taken from their graves are made of semi-precious 
stones not native to this part of the country. They also worked with 
animal bones, and they had many strings and bands of tiny fresh¬ 
water pearls, taken from the mussels they dug from the sand bars of 
the Ohio and its tributaries. 

The Indians we know about were the next people to live in the 
Ohio Valley. Some people say that the Indians called this river Oyo, 
“the great.” Others assert that the Indians named the stream Ohi-peek- 
hanne , which means “very white, foaming.” Perhaps it was so named 
because the swift currents which rode the river bends jumped into 
little white waves. 

The Indians snared fish in the river, planted corn in the bottom 
lands, and tracked down game in the heavy forests. When the hunting 
was not so good on the north bank of the Ohio, they paddled across 
to Kentucky for their game. When the Indians had to move or visit 
or fight, they slid their canoes into the fast current of the river. Parties 
of Indians often came from as far north as Lake Erie to hunt in Ken¬ 
tucky. Their trail crossed the Ohio River at the site of Cincinnati, 
passed through what is now Covington, and went alongside the Licking 
River as it cut through the Kentucky hiUs. 

The Indians walked this same long path for salt, which was hard 
to find in some parts of the region north of the Ohio. Salt-making 
expeditions would canoe down the Ohio River and follow the buffalo 
trails through the Kentucky wilds to a salt spring, called a “lick” 
because it was a place where the animals came to lick up the salt on 
the earth around the spring. Days would be spent filling kettles with 
salt water and boiling out the water until only the salt was left. Big 
Bone Lick, just down the river from Cincinnati in Boone County, 
Kentucky, was visited often by the Ohio tribes. It was not far from 
the Ohio River, so that most of the long trip could be made by canoe. 
Sometimes they continued all the way down to the Louisville falls by 
boat and then traveled many miles overland to get a big supply of salt. 

Then white men entered the Ohio Valley. La Salle, the French ex¬ 
plorer, is said to have discovered a river in 1669 which may have been 
the Ohio. We do know that other Frenchmen soon thereafter wandered 


9 


The Beautiful River 


down the river and were amazed at the beauty of this new country. 
On each side of the beautiful river lay a woodland of low hills and 
broad valleys, which carried slender streams and creeks into the river. 
Sycamore, willow, swamp oak, and water maple trees were thick beside 
beds of high, green-leafed cane which came down to the edge of the 
banks. From the sides of the hills rose huge forests of poplar, oak, 
hickory, maple, ash, and smaller trees. Leaves drifting down from these 
trees made a cover for the soil when the snow came. Over all the hills 
and valleys and even on the steep slopes above the river, a network 
of big and little tree roots kept the soil from washing away. So the 
Ohio and its tributaries, even when they were high from rain and 
melted snow, were not muddy as they are today, but clear and pure. 
Seeing all this natural beauty, the Frenchmen called the river La Belle 
Riviere , which means “the beautiful river.” 

For many years after the visit of the French explorers, only a few 
white people, mostly French and English traders and fur-trappers, 
lived in the Ohio Valley. It did not take them long, however, to quar¬ 
rel. The French group and the British group each wanted the rich 
forests, fields, and rivers for itself, and each tried to get the help of 
the Indians. The French claimed the land because of La Salle’s explor¬ 
ations. The British claimed it by right of settlement. They pointed out 
that the Colonies on the Atlantic Coast were part of the British Empire, 
and that people from these Colonies had pushed westward over the 
Appalachian Mountains and built homes close to the streams in the 
Ohio Valley. 

Meanwhile, in Europe, Britain and France started to war against 
each other. The fighting spread to this continent, and the French and 
British tried to drive each other out of the Ohio Valley. For seven 
years they battled, and then in 1763 the British won. They and the 
Indians ruled the Valley—but not for long. The American Revolu¬ 
tionary War came in 1775. When it was over, the Americans and the 
Indians were in the Ohio Valley, and each was determined to keep it. 

During the Revolutionary War and immediately afterwards, people 
from Virginia and Pennsylvania settled on the Kentucky shore of the 
Ohio River. Some went down the Shenandoah Valley and through the 
Cumberland Gap to the bluegrass region; others followed the Cum¬ 
berland River and the other southern tributaries of the Ohio. Still 
others went directly down the Ohio. By 1787 many white settlers were 
in Kentucky. 

There were few people in the great region, extending from the Ap¬ 
palachians to the Mississippi and from the Ohio River to the Great 
Lakes, known as the Northwest Territory. The land was owned by 


10 


The Beautiful River 


various Eastern States. One by one they gave to the United States 
their titles to the region, and the vast Northwest Territory soon 
belonged to the Federal Government. The new territory was more than 
a quarter-million square miles in area, and from it at a later date 
were carved Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and a part 
of Minnesota. 

Here was the backyard of the new United States, the home of ani¬ 
mals and Indians and a few white people, a great wilderness without 
roads—dangerous, lovely, profitable. Men in the East were eager to 
live in the Northwest Territory. 

At first there were no laws for the new territory, so that people 
could not buy the land. Then, in 1787, a set of rules was drawn up 
and called the Ordinance of 1787. The Northwest Territory was now 
open for settlement. 

The settlers came. In their way were tall mountains, tangled for¬ 
ests, and resentful Indians. But after they crossed the mountains they 
found a mighty friend—the Ohio River. It ran hundreds of miles 
along the southern border of the Northwest Territory; it carried 
many of them to their new homes. 


11 


DOWN TO THE SEA IN BOATS 


T HE people who settled Marietta, Columbia, and Losantiville (later 
Cincinnati), all of which were founded in 1788, came over the 
mountains in carts and wagons, but when they reached the Ohio 
River they built flatboats. They chopped down trees, then sawed them 
into planks thick and strong enough to stand the hard trip down the 
river. Since nails were expensive, the timbers were usually fitted to¬ 
gether with wooden pegs cut by hand. 

The flatboat was from 20 to 60 feet long and from 10 to 20 
feet wide. In the center stood a cabin of thick, bullet-proof planks, 
with no openings in the sides except loopholes for rifles. A trap door 
and a window were in the roof. The cabin usually had a central 
hall, a bedroom, and a combination living-dining room. AJ1 the 
rooms were heated by a fireplace or by the crude stove used for cooking. 

If all but an end of the boat was roofed, the vessel was called a 
Kentucky-boat. Most boats were without roofs. They were divided into 
compartments for cattle, tools, household furniture, and baggage. 

The rectangular flatboat was usually steered by a pole as long as 
the boat itself, but one type of flatboat, the hroadhorn, was guided 
by two huge sweeps or oars. Other types included the bateau, a broad, 
heavy boat for carrying big loads, and the galley, a wide skiff moved 
forward by heavy oars. 

Although the river was a large friend to the settler, it some¬ 
times caused a great deal of trouble. Boats might be snagged by 
hidden tree branches and floating logs, or caught in the sand bottom. 
There are many stories of boats crushed by ice cakes, and of others 
breaking loose from their moorings and running wild down the flooded 
river. One boat became lodged on a sandbar. The grown-ups had left 
two children aboard and had gone to see about moving the stranded 
vessel. The boat quickly swung off the bar and floated away with the 
children. The parents got into a canoe and paddled after it for many 
miles before they reached their frightened youngsters. 

Indians were even more troublesome than the river. They felt that 
the only way to keep the Ohio Country to themselves was to drive 
away or kill the settlers. The Indians hid in the high cliffs and behind 
the trees along the upper Ohio. When a flatboat came too near the 


12 


The Beautiful River 


shore, they slid into the boat and tomahawked the settlers. The Indians 
were very clever at concealing themselves on the hanks of the river. 
So when a boat swung close to the shore—even if for only a moment— 
the Indians could leap from their hiding place and climb on board the 
flatboat almost before the pioneer had time to reach for his rifle. 

In this manner a family named Hubbel was attacked. While the 
men were busy fighting the Indians, the women hid their children in 
the cabin and told them to he quiet or the Indians would steal them. 
One of the little boys was given his baby sister to hold. Suddenly an 
arrow pierced the cabin wall and stuck in his arm. He made no sound, 
and kept holding the baby until someone ran to help him. 

Quite often the Indians tricked the pioneers. They pretended to 
be white men lost in the woods, and yelled between the palms of their 
hands. Or else they imitated the call of wild turkeys or other game 
birds which the men on the boat would like to have for food. In either 
case, the pioneers would of course steer their boats to shore. Then a 
band of painted, screaming Indians would jump from among the trees 
and try to rush the boat. Sometimes such attempts were successful, 
but often they were not, for the pioneers were well-armed and even 
the women and girls knew how to use the rifle. 

After 1794, when the Indians had been subdued by “Mad” Anthony 
Wayne, the journey down the Ohio was much less dangerous. The 
ark, which had been easy prey for the Indians because it was slow and 
clumsy, now became popular on the river. It was usually between 40 
and 50 feet long and about one-third as wide, and it was steered and 


QUIET WATER Courtesy of the Cincinnati Enquirer 



The Beautiful River 


propelled by oars. Its prow and stern were a blunt V in shape. Only 
a part of the ark was roofed to protect travelers from the weather; 
the rest, usually reserved for livestock, was open. When it was filled 
with a cargo of noisy farm animals, the boat probably looked like 
Noah’s ark. 

When danger no longer lurked in the forests, the pioneers pushed 
up the Ohio’s tributaries. They cleared the fertile river valleys and 
planted corn and wheat and flax. Soon the flatboats on the little rivers 
were bearing loads of farm produce to the towns on the Ohio. 

Farmers living upstream needed the tools and furniture which 
could be bought in Cincinnati. But the upstream journey in the heavy 
boats was hard, slow, and expensive. Other types of river craft were 
therefore invented. Their model was the narrow-bottomed Indian 
canoe. Because the birch tree did not grow so far south, the canoe of 
the Ohio Indian was never like Hiawatha’s—of birchbark and boughs. 
Instead it was a canoe-shaped dugout, made by hollowing out a large 
tree trunk. 

The Ohio white men used dugouts. Although they were good for 
travel to town, however, the dugouts were too small to carry profitable 
loads of crops. So the pioneer farmers made dugouts of the biggest 
trees they could find—of oak and poplar—and called them pirogues. 
They were fifty feet long and six or eight feet wide, went swiftly 
downstream, and through hard work could be rowed upstream. When 
the spring freshets came, they were dangerous because they tipped 
over easily and lost all their cargo. 

The keelboat was the first boat on the inland waters of America 
designed to be used for commerce. It was 60 to 70 feet long and 
had a narrow bottom and a prow curved like that of a canoe. 
Running the length of the bottom was a heavy piece of wood called 
the keel. It was strong enough to take knocks and bumps without 
cracking or breaking. Freight was carried in the “cargo box,” which 
was much like a ship’s hold. Sails were sometimes hoisted on the 
keelboat, but the wind rarely filled them. And even when it did, the 
currents'* were much stronger than the wind. 

Bringing a large, heavily laden keelboat upriver required twice 
as many men as the downriver trip. As a rule many men who worked 
their way up the river on keelboats had come down it on flatboats. 
They had taken cargoes down river to their destination, then knocked 
the boats to pieces and sold the planking. Not wanting to walk home 
cross-country from New Orleans and other southern ports, many of 
them took jobs as keelboatmen on craft bound up the river. 

“Cordelling” was a good way of taking a keelboat upstream, espe¬ 
cially on the lower Mississippi. From the center of the keelboat rose 


14 


The Beautiful River 


a strong thirty-foot mast. To this was fastened the cordelle, a rope 
often more than 300 yards long, which reached to the hands of keel- 
boatmen on the bank. It kept the boat a safe distance from shore. The 
high mast lifted the rope well above the brush and smaller trees on 
the river’s edge. Walking in single file with the line over their 
shoulders, the keelboatmen pulled the craft up the river, just as years 
later mules dragged the canal boats through the canal. 

In places where cordelling was impractical, the keelboats were 
“warped” upriver. In warping a boat, the men on shore walked ahead 
and tied the rope to a tree. The men on hoard then heaved on the 
line until the boat was abreast the tree. Then the rope was untied, 
carried ahead, fastened to another tree, and pulled again. 

Whenever the water was shallow, the boat was “poled” against the 
sandy bottom of the Ohio. The crew divided into two single-file lines, 
one line on each runway by the cargo box. Each man held an ironshod 
pole and faced astern. At the command, “Set poles!” the boatmen 
plunged their poles into the river bed. As the captain roared “Back 
her!” they threw their weight against the poles and walked toward 
the stern, forcing the boat against the current. As each boatman 
reached the stern he jerked his pole from the river bed and hurried 
back to the bow to take his place in line. This procedure was kept up 
day after day until the boat reached its goal. 

Sometimes the keelboats got stuck in the mud and sand. Then the 
keelboatmen had to unload the cargo and carry it on their backs up 
river until the water was deep enough to support a heavily stocked 
boat. In places the shallow water extended for miles, so that the men 
could not carry the cargo. In such cases, they swung pick and shovel 
and, working in water up to their knees, dug the channel deeper. Now 
and then the water got so low that they had to camp on the river bank 
for hours or days or even weeks, waiting for the water to rise. 

Life on a keelboat was hard. Unruly slaves on Southern plantations 
trembled and promised to be good when their masters threatened to 
sell them to a keelboat owner. The keelboatmen were brawny young 
white men who worked hard for 50 cents a day and led a rough- 
and-tumble life. They were happy and carefree, and big enough to 
cope with river troubles. 

Just as there are countless stories, some tall, some true, of the 
early lumbermen, hunters, and Indian fighters, so are there tales of 
the keelboatmen. Greatest of them, now half-mythical, was Mike Fink. 
He was the hardest drinker and the deadliest rifle shot, the strongest 
and bravest keelboatmen “on both sides the river from Pittsburgh to 


15 


The Beautiful River 


New Orleans and back again to St. Louis.” He could shoot tin cups 
from the heads of his companions, and work or play 24 hours 
at a stretch. He never shirked his job or broke a promise. If a sheriff 
ever came looking for Mike Fink, nobody seemed to know a thing 
about him, for he was feared along the entire length of the river. 

Even river pirates avoided Mike Fink and his fellow keelboatmen. 
They preferred to get their loot easily by boarding stalled flatboats. 
If the cargo was rich enough and they outnumbered the men on board, 
they even dared attack and kill the crew. They would then take the 
boat on down to New Orleans themselves and sell the cargo. 

The river pirates had headquarters at several places along the 
Ohio. One band hung out at Cave-in-Rock, on the Ohio near Shawnee- 
town, Illinois. When boatmen neared Cave-in-Rock, they worked as 
hard as they could until they were safely past. They were joyful when 
they glimpsed the broad mouth of the Ohio at Cairo, Illinois. 

Boats plying the Mississippi had an extra load of trouble. The mo¬ 
ment they left the Ohio River and entered the Mississippi, they were 
in Spanish territory. Spain was not friendly to the United States. It 
owned Florida and the vast Louisiana territory; it controlled the Mis¬ 
sissippi. A thriving river trade would, year by year, draw more Ameri¬ 
can settlers to the Ohio and the Mississippi. Eventually, the Spaniards 
thought, the American colonists would cross the Mississippi and take 
Spanish land. 

To discourage trade and hold back the settlers, Spain had threat¬ 
ened to close the Mississippi River to American boats. Then in 1795 
President Washington made a treaty with Spain which guaranteed 
Americans the right to travel on the Mississippi and ship their goods 
into New Orleans. 

The treaty did not help the United States very much. Only the port 
of New Orleans itself was open to trade, and Americans paid a high 
tariff on goods they brought there. 

In 1802 the United States learned that Spain by a secret treaty in 
1800 had given its Louisiana and Florida territory to France. It had 
been dangerous enough having Spain a neighbor of the United States. 
Everyone now felt that Napoleon, Emperor of the French, was an 
even greater threat. 

President Jefferson thought that any nation which controlled the 
Mississippi River was a natural enemy of the United States. He knew 
that as the years passed the people of the Ohio Valley would have 


16 


The Beautiful River 


more and more goods to sell, and that the Nation needed a free and 
convenient seaport through which merchandise could be shipped. 

Jefferson decided that, instead of warring with France, the United 
States should buy the port of New Orleans and a strip of land adjoin¬ 
ing the Mississippi River. Fortunately for the United States, Napoleon 
needed money for his European campaigns. Despite his promise to 
Spain that he would hold onto his American territories, Napoleon 
offered to sell not merely what President Jefferson had asked for, but 
all of France’s holdings in North America. Although Jefferson was 
not certain that he had the authority to purchase the land, he lost 
little time pondering. In 1803 he bought the French territory for the 
United States for only $15,000,000. 


17 


SMOKE ON THE RIVER 


T HE Louisiana Purchase brought great rejoicing to the people 
along the Ohio and its tributaries. Shippers and keelboatmen no 
longer had to risk their cargo, traders would not have to suffer 
fines and imprisonment for dealing in Louisiana, and there were no 
more Spanish duties or taxes to pay. 

Easterners were less enthusiastic. The Louisiana Purchase doubled 
the size of the United States, and the Easterners wanted to know just 
what the Government would ever do with so much territory. The land 
west of the Mississippi, they said, could never be anything more than 
a wilderness. It was too far away; people would never settle there; 
it would never have anything but wild animals and wilder Indians— 
so the people of the East argued. 

In spite of all they said, many of them went west to clear the land 
and plant crops for the profitable trade in the new territory. They 
pushed westward into the land beyond the Mississippi, and chopped 
down oak, maple, poplar, and hickory forests to plant fields of flax 
and wheat and corn. 

In the older Southern States, such as Virginia and the Carolinas, 
the cotton land was being worn out by careless farming. Now that the 
cotton growers were certain they could sell their cotton in New Orleans, 
they, too, went west into Arkansas and Alabama and Louisiana. They 
cleared acres of forest to make room for cotton. 

The many new people in the South and West were customers for 
the goods of the Ohio Valley, and they in turn shipped produce to 
the valley towns. 

So large was the traffic on the river that men tried to invent new 
boats to lessen the cost of manpower and thus make even greater 
profits. In 1803 paddle-propelled boats appeared on the Mississippi. 
The hull was like that of a keelboat, and the boat was powered by 
horses walking a treadmill on board the boat. These horse-boats were 
complete failures; the horses could not do the work of the keelboat¬ 
men. Tired horses collapsed in harness faster than fresh horses could 
be found. 

There were other new kinds of boats, but none was so good as the 
old keelboat. So Mike Fink and his cronies bent over with laughter 


18 


The Beautiful River 


when they heard that a man was going up and down the river asking 
rivermen if they thought the Ohio and the Mississippi would do for 
steamboat travel. Always they shouted “No,” and jeered at the crazy 
notion. True, they had heard that a man named Fulton had made a 
contraption called a steamboat which was running on Eastern waters, 
but such a boat, they said, could never buck the stiff currents and 
swift floods of the Mississippi and the Ohio. The keelboatmen said 
that only good hard muscle could bring goods upstream. 

The man who had asked the questions up and down the river in 
1809 was not discouraged. His name was Nicholas J. Roosevelt, and he 
worked for Fulton and Livingston, steamboat builders and operators 
in New York. He investigated the channels and currents, and ques¬ 
tioned people on boats and in the river towns. Everywhere they 
laughed in his face or politely smiled and shook their heads. They 
laughed even louder when they heard that Roosevelt had arranged to 
have supplies of wood and coal at points along the river—supplies of 
fuel to be used to make steam in a boat not yet built. 

The year 1811 was a year of wonders in the river valleys. The Great 
Comet moved like a fiery serpent across the sky. People trembled and 
prayed, for they thought it meant the end of the world. There were 
Indian uprisings in Indiana. The Mississippi raged and the earth 
trembled. 

Among these awful happenings Nicholas J. Roosevelt came down 
the Ohio again in October 1811. He was the proud captain of the 
steamboat built under his supervision at Pittsburgh. Few of the scof¬ 
fers who lined the banks of the Ohio to see the ungainly contraption 
would have believed that here was the beginning of Cincinnati’s great¬ 
ness as a shipping center. To most of the folk along the river the 
Orleans was nothing more than another wonder in a year of wonders, 
good only for scaring cattle and farmer lads. It was an ugly, noisy 
thing, chugging and sputtering, paddling up white foam, puffing up 
black smoke. 

The Orleans stopped at Cincinnati long enough to refuel, and most 
of the town turned out to see it. Keelboatmen and others who knew 
the river laughed and ridiculed. Almost anything, even a log raft, they 
yelled, would go down river, but it took men, real men, to bring a 
load up river. 

The Orleans steamed on down the Ohio to Louisville. It arrived at 
midnight, with such a noise and hissing of steam that the townspeople 
jumped from their beds and hurried to see whether the comet had 
fallen from the sky into the river. 


19 


The Beautiful River 



The autumn rains were late that year, so that even in October the 
river was too low for the steamboat to travel beyond the falls at Louis¬ 
ville. While waiting for the water to rise, Captain Roosevelt had a 
chance to show what the Orleans could do. He steamed back and forth 
between Cincinnati and Louisville. The most skeptical people now had 
to admit that the steamboat could go upstream as well as down. 

An earthquake came in December, shook down chimneys in Cin¬ 
cinnati, and made the Ohio and the Mississippi splash like oceans. The 
Orleans , tied up at Louisville, bobbed safely through the earthquake, 
but many keelboats and flatboats went under, losing their cargoes and 
a number of their men. 

The Mississippi was especially terrifying just below the mouth of 
the Ohio. Here the earth rose and sank, forcing the waters backward 
and over the land. When the earthquake stopped, tall trees were under 
water and there was a new lake in Tennessee and Kentucky. It extended 
for several miles on the eastern side of the Mississippi River. Today 
it is known as Reelfoot Lake. 

The Orleans had steamed on down the Mississippi from Louisville. 
Its supply of coal was exhausted, so that each afternoon the crew went 
ashore to cut wood for the boilers. It was nervous work, for the earth 
grumbled and fussed beneath them. Some people along the way ran 
in terror from the strange, smoking boat on the river. Others, who had 
a greater fear of the violent earth, begged to be taken aboard. 

Courtesy of the Cincinnati Public Library RIVER NEIGHRORS 





The Beautiful River 


When Livingston and Fulton, owners of the company for which 
Captain Roosevelt worked, saw that a steamboat could navigate the 
Mississippi, they established a freight route from Natchez to New Or¬ 
leans, and built two more boats, the Hecla and the Etna , to carry 
merchandise. 

The Orleans sank in 1814, but two years later Fulton and Livingston 
salvaged its engine and put it in the New Orleans . When this ship 
stopped at Cincinnati on its first voyage, the newspapers took sharp 
notice. After watching the new steamboat tie up at the Public Landing, 
the editor of the Cincinnati Gazette remarked: 

The steamboat New Orleans came to anchor before this 
port on Monday last. This is a large and handsome vessel, 
burthen 350 tons, intended for the trade of the Mississippi 
and will probably, now that the path has been success¬ 
fully chalked out by the Etna , often pay her acceptable 
visits at Louisville. We do not envy our friends at Louis¬ 
ville the advantages they enjoy over us, we only regret 
our legislature has not yet caught the spirit of theirs. 

Steamboating did not develop as quickly as it might have because 
of the Livingston Company. The Louisiana Territorial legislature had 
granted this firm the exclusive right to use steamboats on the rivers 
of that territory. The operation of steamboats was thereby made un¬ 
profitable to anyone else. There was little to be gained in bringing 
freight down to the Louisiana border and transferring it to a Living¬ 
ston vessel, which would take it into New Orleans, sell it, and make 
all the money. 

The rivermen and traders felt that such an arrangement was unfair. 
They believed that the Mississippi River should he like a public high¬ 
way, open to every one who wished to use it. 

Captain Henry Miller Shreve thought so too. He was so strong in 
his conviction that he went down to New Orleans in his good ship 
Enterprise. This was, of course, against the law, because the boat did 
not belong to Fulton and Livingston. The captain was arrested. He 
was not surprised. In fact, he had already hired an able New Orleans 
lawyer. He and his boat were soon released. 

Fulton and Livingston were furious. They hired all the remaining 
lawyers in New Orleans, and even tried to bribe Captain Shreve’s law¬ 
yer into betraying him. Fulton and Livingston and all their lawyers 
failed to get Captain Shreve punished; so in 1816 they took the case 
to court. The decision handed down was that rivers should be free 
to all men. 

The Livingston Company ignored the ruling and had Captain 
Shreve arrested again when he later came down the river in the steam- 


21 


The Beautiful River 


boat Washington. This time the shrewd captain did nothing. He just 
sat. He knew what people up and down the river were thinking. They 
believed that the river should be free. When they heard that he had 
been seized again, this time for something which was no longer against 
the law, there was such a public demonstration that he was soon re¬ 
leased. The monopolists then had to pay him for the trouble they 
had caused. 

The Livingston and Fulton Company had another steamboat mo¬ 
nopoly in New York; no Ohio-built boats were allowed on the lakes 
or rivers which touched that State. While Captain Shreve was fighting 
in New Orleans for the freedom of the Mississippi, the Ohio legislature 
was protesting the Livingston monopoly in New York. In 1822 the 
Ohio legislature closed its Lake Erie ports to the Livingston and Fulton 
boats, until New York ports were opened to Ohio-built boats. This 
question was carried to the Supreme Court of the United States by 
Daniel Webster. 

The verdict, pronounced by Chief Justice John Marshall, was that 
the navigable rivers, lakes, and streams of the United States should 
not be controlled by any of the States, but by the United States as a 
whole. Thus boats, regardless of where or by whom they were built, 
could travel on any river or lake in this country. 


22 


BALES AND BARRELS 


INCINNATI traders had been making money in spite of the 



monopoly. In 1813 a Cincinnatian named Carter wrote that his 


son who was engaged in river trade would “clear in eight 
months four thousand dollars.” The same writer told of “one New 
England man who came here six years ago with $33, traded to New 
Orleans, and is now worth ten thousand dollars in cash.” The cargo 
the traders took down the river was flour, pork, and whisky; the re¬ 
turn load from New Orleans was sugar, cotton, coffee, and rice. Men 
reaped fortunes from the Cincinnati-New Orleans trade. 

Other men made a good living by operating floating grocery 
stores, or bumhoats, which peddled to the villagers and farmers along 
the Ohio and smaller rivers. 

Most of the traveling storekeepers would buy their stock of dry- 
goods and groceries in Cincinnati, then set out in the spring when the 
river was full enough to float heavy loads. The trader went only to 
the villages not large enough to support a general store the year 
around. As he drew near the bank, he sounded a mighty blast on a 
horn. No sooner did he touch the landing than bonneted women and 
girls rushed aboard. 

As they fingered the wares and bargained, they asked the store¬ 
keeper for news. The keeper of the bumhoat was often the only con¬ 
tact the backwoods river villages had with the outside world; he was 
trader, entertainer, and traveling newspaper. Often the people with 
whom he traded had no cash; he would then accept such country 
produce as flour, bacon, whisky, cheese, butter, or eggs. Since the flat- 
boat attempted to supply everything which a settler might need, 
whether a needle or an anchor, the country produce was usually wel¬ 
comed. It was possible that in another settlement a few miles farther 
down the river there might be a shortage of eggs or something else. 

Other boats which served the river farms and villages were those 
of blacksmiths who shod horses and mules, and made iron wagon 
tires and farm tools on their boats. There were furniture makers and 
upholsterers, and in later days there were even sawyers on great flat- 
boats carrying sawmills to cut lumber for new houses in the growing 
towns of the Valley. 


23 


From an old print 


BUSY PORT 


Cincinnati grew with the river trade. It changed from a log cabin 
village, straggling along a few muddy roads, to a brisk little town 
with its face turned to the river. From the creek and river valleys on 
the north, waddled hogs by the hundreds into Cincinnati, shaking 
up dust and making noise all the way to the slaughterhouses. Into the 
town from the outlying farmlands also creaked great wagons heavy 
with corn, wheat, beef, flax, wool, hides, furs, ginseng, tobacco, and 
handmade linsey-woolsey jeans and socks and mittens. Down the two 
Miamis and down the Licking (in Kentucky) came heavily loaded 
boats to Cincinnati. 

Some of this produce was used in Cincinnati, hut most of it was 
shipped south to plantations and towns along the Mississippi. At New 
Orleans a great part of it was put on ocean-going vessels bound for 
American cities along the Atlantic and also for countries on the other 
side of the ocean. 

As the steamboat replaced most of the manpowered craft, steam¬ 
boat building became an important industry. Steamboats were ham¬ 
mered together by the score each year. Sometimes several boats were 
launched in a single day. 

As steamboats became more numerous, goods could be transported 
more quickly and cheaply up and down the rivers. More and more 
families came to live in the Valley. Immigrants, especially from Ger¬ 
many and Ireland, thronged to Cincinnati. 


24 


The Beautiful River 


Greater now than ever before was the demand for the produce 
of Ohio farmers. Every year more acres were planted in corn and 
wheat, more hogs and sheep and cattle fattened. 

In pioneer days Ohio farmers had learned that a hog could be 
driven to market over any kind of land in all kinds of weather. So, 
instead of hauling corn to market, farmers within a radius of 150 
miles drove their corn-fed hogs into Cincinnati to be slaughtered. By 
1825, because of Cincinnati’s packing industries, Easterners had nick¬ 
named the city “Porkopolis.” The Public Landing was piled high 
with hogsheads of salt pork to be shipped south. Barrels of spareribs 
could be had at the packing houses for the asking, and other parts 
of the hog were cheap almost beyond belief. 

Hogs could eat only so much farm produce. The inland farmer 
scarcely knew what to do with the rest. Roads were still crude and 
there were no railroads. The richest part of Ohio, the western section, 
had few navigable streams. There was no good way of getting farm 
produce to the town market. 

City business men were as eager as the farmer to find a way of 
bringing farm crops to market. When the farmer prospered, the whole 
town profited; the more he sold, the more he was able to buy. 

The people of Ohio looked about for some solution to the prob¬ 
lem. They found the answer in New York and other Eastern States, 
where canals had been dug. Freight and passengers were carried over 
the canals on barges drawn by horses on the towpaths. 

Urged by an eager public, the Ohio legislature voted money for 
the building of canals through Ohio. Work on the Miami and Erie 
Canal, which ran from the Ohio River at Cincinnati to Lake Erie at 
Toledo, was begun in 1825. Although the canal took 20 years to 
complete, only a few years elapsed before farmers a short distance 
north of Cincinnati began to use the southern portion. Barge loads 
of farm produce, pulled by horses and mules sweating on the hard- 
beaten towpath, soon arrived in the city. And barges piled with farm 
machinery, furniture, sugar, and coffee left Cincinnati for up-state 
communities and farms. 

The canals made men realize the possibilities of the little rivers— 
Ohio River tributaries, not only in Ohio, but also in Kentucky, Indi¬ 
ana, and Illinois. Down these to the Ohio came lumber, coal, iron ore, 
farm produce, furs, game, and raw materials for manufacture or for 
trans-shipment down the Mississippi. Back up the little rivers went 
manufactured goods and other things which the people inland could 
not make or grow for themselves. The Ohio River banded a multitude 
of people and products together, and placed the goods of Europe and 
India within reach of Ohio farmers. A traveler who came to Cincinnati 


25 


The Beautiful River 


almost a hundred years ago marveled, “When a boat came to the land¬ 
ing it seemed as if all the world were there.” 

Cincinnati became Queen City of the West, greatest of the inland 
river towns. At its landing every kind of farm produce and manufac¬ 
tured article was being loaded or unloaded, while rivermen, laborers, 
and passengers mingled, some departing, others arriving, others merely 
looking on or strolling by in the bedlam of the busiest, most colorful 
port between Pittsburgh and New Orleans. 

The big hotels were near the landing—so near that when the Gib¬ 
son House was opened at its present location in 1849, many people 
thought it was too far from the river. Front and Pearl Streets were 
not lined with warehouses as they are today, but filled with hotels, 
shops, factories, and saloons. 

All kinds of people mingled on the streets, in the restaurants and 
hotels, and at the Public Landing: rich Southern planters in high 
beaver hats, with their families, attended by a retinue of slaves; sun¬ 
burned farmers from Ohio and Kentucky; Irish and German immi¬ 
grants fresh from the Old Country, still wearing their native dress 
and speaking their native tongue or brogue; swaggering steamboat 
captains; and wide-shouldered river men. Roustabouts tugged at bales 
of cotton and hogsheads of pork and tobacco; they rolled barrels of 
flour, meal, sugar, coffee, molasses, salt, fish, fruits, and all the other 
produce of the South down the gangplanks. Teamsters swore and 
lashed the horses and mules hauling merchandise from the landing. 

Crowds of carriages, carts, and wagons rattled over the cobblestone 
streets down to the landing. Some brought food supplies to be used 
on the steamboats, or freight to be shipped down river. Others carried 
passengers to the boats. 

Down to the river there came also a multitude of men who made 
special parts for the paddle-wheelers. They manufactured engines, 
steamboat furniture, and fittings. The work of repairing and repaint¬ 
ing the boats kept others busy, while many more were needed to supply 
rope, anchors, fuel, and food for the passengers and crews of the 
hundreds of boats that docked at Cincinnati. 


26 


RACING PALACES 


S O it was that the steamboat became queen of the river, ordering 
the lives of the people in the Valley. By 1850 few flatboats, keel- 
boats, or other manpower boats rode the waters of the Ohio. 
They had been replaced by the steamboat, which had been improved 
so rapidly that it was hardly to be compared with the one that Captain 
Nicholas Roosevelt had introduced in 1811. 

The early steamboat had little regard for schedule; it began its 
trip whenever the captain saw fit. Judge Janies Hall, Cincinnati his¬ 
torian and novelist, upon one occasion rushed from his hotel without 
his breakfast in order to catch a steamboat scheduled to leave port 
at eight o’clock, then had to wait three days on board before the boat 
actually started. Indignantly he wrote: 


During the whole first day, passengers continued to come 
on board, puffing and blowing—in the most eager haste 
to secure passage—each having been assured by the cap¬ 
tain or agent that the boat would start in less than an 
hour. The next day presented the same scene; the rain 
continued to fall; we were two miles from the city, lying 
against a miry bank which prevented anyone from leaving 
the boat. . . . Bye and bye the captain came—but then we 
must wait a few minutes for the clerk, and when the clerk 
came, the captain found that he must go to town. In the 
meanwhile passengers continued to accumulate, each de¬ 
coyed alike by the assurance that the boat was about to 
depart. Thus we were detained until the third day , when 
the cabin and deck being crowded with a collection nearly 
as miscellaneous as the crew of Noah’s Ark, the captain 
thought it proper to proceed on his voyage. 

Once it got under way, the pioneer steamboat was dangerous and 
uncomfortable. All passengers were accommodated in a spacious 
saloon with separate compartments for men and women. The cabins 
were poorly lighted by oil lamps, which sometimes set fire to the boat. 
The fuel used to keep up the steam in the boilers was wood or soft 
coal. On days when the wind blew in the wrong direction the passen¬ 
gers were showered with soot, ashes, and cinders. 


27 


The Beautiful River 


When the river was low, boats had to wait for it to rise. The pas¬ 
sengers could fish, stroll over the countryside, amuse themselves aboard 
with eating, drinking, and dancing, or listen to the captain rant at the 
delay. The passage included hoard and lodging between points on the 
river for as long as the journey took. During the tie-ups the captain 
often complained that the passengers ate him out of his profits. 

Such conditions did not last long. As more steamboats were built, 
competition became keener. To secure passengers each boat tried to 
outdo the others in comfort, good food, and speed. Many were adorned, 
inside and out, with oil paintings, sometimes of Biblical scenes. The 
steam calliope catered to other tastes by blowing gay tunes for the 
passengers. The chandeliers in these “floating palaces,” says Mark 
Twain, “were each an April shower of glittering glass drops.” 

Every captain prided himself on the gadgets of his boat, such as 
whistle and bells unlike any others on the river. One captain came 
to see his bell cast in a Cincinnati foundry, and threw 500 silver dollars 
into the melting pot to insure a clear, pure tone. Often the bells were 
prized more highly than the engines; if a boat sank, a diver was sent 
to the river bottom to get the bells. 

In later days, when steamboats ran according to schedule, people 
living miles back in the hills above the river set their clocks by the 
long wailing of some steamboat whistle as the boat came round a bend 
in the river. Steamboats were always coming and going, their deep- 
toned whistles sounding for a bend or a fog or a landing, their bells 
ringing, their engines roaring, their great wheels splashing, and their 
tall smokestacks pouring black smoke. 

The engines were not so powerful as those of today. They consumed 
a great deal of fuel, so that boats had to stop frequently to refuel with 
coal or wood. To get the greatest amount of power it was necessary to 
have the smokestack as high as possible, so that there would be a 
strong draft in the firebox. Therefore, until bridges were swung across 
the Ohio, stacks were often more than 50 feet high. 

There were no beacon lights on shore to guide the boat, no buoys 
in the river to warn of shoals, no navigation laws. Captain and crew, 
always eager to make speed, were sometimes careless. As a rule the 
fastest boats got most of the passengers and freight, so that boats were 
built for speed, not for safety or long use. There was always the danger 
that a snag or a rock would crush the flimsy hull and sink the steamer. 
Boilers were flimsily built. Some were equipped with safety valves so 
the steam could escape when the pressure became dangerously high. 
But they were often tied down when a race was on or the captain was 
in a hurry. As a result, boilers often blew up. 


28 



FULL STEAM From the Currier & Ives Print 

Because of all these hazards, steamboat accidents were usually dis¬ 
astrous. The Moselle was a Cincinnati-built vessel noted up and down 
the river for beauty and speed. No vessel could beat her on the run 
to St. Louis. On April 25, 1838, the captain of a rival boat steamed 
down river boasting that he would break the record of the Moselle to 
St. Louis. The captain of the Moselle was in no humor to let this hap¬ 
pen. He gave orders for full steam ahead. 

Awaiting the steamer about two miles up river from Cincinnati was 
a large party of German immigrants who had made arrangements to 
go to St. Louis. When the ship stopped to pick them up, one of the 
passengers, an engineer who had come aboard at the Cincinnati wharf, 
went down to have a look at the engine room. He came on deck soon 
after and immediately left the boat, remarking to some of the crew 
that the boilers could never hold up under such a terrific pressure 
of steam. 

No one heeded the frightened engineer. Instead, the crew worked 
swiftly getting the passengers and freight aboard, and the vessel was 
soon ready to start. The fires below deck raged and the boilers hissed, 
but no one cared. Everybody was eager for the race down river. As the 
boat backed away from the landing, cries of farewell and good luck 
came from friends on shore. Then all four boilers blew up at once. 
The big boat was torn to pieces. 


29 







The Beautiful River 


Of some 300 passengers, about 200 were killed. Some of the dead 
were past recognition: 19 unidentified bodies were buried at public 
expense in a common grave. 

Everyone was so shocked at this tragedy that the Federal Govern¬ 
ment appointed officers to inspect boats and enforce safety regulations. 
The inspectors did some good, but they could not prevent all accidents. 
After a visit to Cincinnati in 1842, Charles Dickens, the author of 
Oliver Twist , David Copperfield , and many other books, commented 
that two or three steamboat disasters in a week were not uncommon. 

These wrecked steamboats were replaced quickly; just before the 
Civil War 600 steamboats were busy on the river all the time. For the 
people were river-minded and by no means timid. The passengers were 
often just as enthusiastic as the captain and the crew over the outcome 
of a race. When a contest was on, anything that would make a hot fire 
was thrown into the fireboxes—rosin, pinewood, turpentine, and even 
oil. A legend tells of passengers so eager to win a race that they 
offered to pay the captain for the cargo if he would burn it. He did, 
and won the race. The cargo that went up in smoke was ham— 
thousands of smoked hams! 

Sometimes races covered more than a thousand miles; boats and 
crew strained for days to win by a boat-length or less. The greatest 
race of all happened in 1870 when the Natchez , a Cincinnati-built boat, 
and the Robert E. Lee ran up river. The course was the 1,218-mile 
stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and St. Louis. 

Newspapers all over the United States discussed the race, just as 
they now talk about the Kentucky Derby or the World Series. During 
the race, people crowded the shores of the Mississippi waiting for a 
sight of the two paddle-wheelers as they drove up river at full steam. 
At night, torches blazed along the banks wherever the lights of the 
boats twinkled on the dark river. Although the boats did not pass 
their city, Cincinnatians were especially eager to know of its outcome. 
They had bet large sums on the Cincinnati boat, Natchez. 

Gradually, as the boats drew on up the Mississippi, the Robert E. 
Lee pulled ahead and reached St. Louis in 3 days, 18 hours, and 
14 minutes—6 hours and 36 minutes ahead of the Natchez. 

Although the Natchez had been beaten fairly, many Cincinnatians 
argued that it was the faster boat. The Robert E. Lee , they pointed 
out, had taken on fuel and supplies without stopping, whereas the 
Natchez had spent 7 hours and 1 minute in refueling. Regardless of 
how it was gained, the record of the Robert E. Lee was unbroken for 
many years. 


30 


© © © © © 


© 


HIGH WATER, LOW WATER 

T HE boat races were exciting, but they indicated that the river was 
not so useful as it had once been. The Ohio and its tributaries 
had changed much since the day when the first flatboat came 
slowly past the deep forest and tall canebrake. Factories, warehouses, 
homes, and cornstalks stood where the forest and canebrake h^d been. 

River traffic soon dwindled and people lost interest in the Ohio. 
They came to think of it mainly as a place into which they could 
dump sewage and waste materials from their factories. They kept cut¬ 
ting down the trees and clearing away the undergrowth along the 
banks of the Ohio and its tributaries. Soon the beautiful river grew 
tawny and changed into a monster. It raised its back, climbed up the 
banks, and ran wild over the countryside, destroying the homes of the 
people who lived in the river towns. 

The Ohio River had flooded often—even in the first years of settle¬ 
ment. But there had been no great floods until 1832 when the flood 
crest at Cincinnati was more than 64 feet—14 feet above the danger 
line. After that the Ohio River came into Cincinnati once every four 
or five years. 

In 1883 the record of the 1832 flood was broken: the Ohio River 
surged up to 66 feet. Cincinnatians were stunned. No one had thought 
that the river could possibly reach such a height. Thousands of homes 
and more than 1,500 business places were flooded. The following year 
(1884) the river heaved to more than 71 feet, destroying more than 
5,000 homes, hundreds of business houses, and 10 lives. 

The next great flood followed the heavy March rains of 1913. It 
caused 400 deaths and $100,000,000 of property damage. Greatest de¬ 
struction of life and property was along the Great Miami, the big 
tributary that empties into the Ohio River a few miles down river from 
Cincinnati. The flood that it caused in Dayton was one of the most 
disastrous in the history of the Nation. 

Within the following two decades there came other floods, but none 
of them was so destructive as those of 1884 and 1913. Hardly anyone 
expected the river to do so much damage again. So in mid-January 
1937 when the Ohio rose suddenly, no one was frightened. “It will go 
down soon—as it always does,” everyone said. 


31 



*> % *] 


mTu mm 


FLOOD 

CINCINNATI 

JANUARY 

1937 


Courtesy of the Air Corps, 
United States Army 


mmSm 









The Beautiful River 


But the river did not go down. It kept rising until it had driven 
thousands of people from their homes in Pittsburgh, Wheeling, Steu¬ 
benville, Marietta, Portsmouth, Maysville, Newport, Covington, Louis¬ 
ville, Evansville—cities and towns along the Ohio down to Cairo, cities 
and towns along the Mississippi down to New Orleans. 

It flooded one-sixth of Cincinnati. The city water supply was turned 
off and people had to get drinking water from wells, springs, and tank 
cars. On Sunday night, January 24, the Columbia power plant was 
forced to shut down and the city was in total darkness. In Cummins- 
ville the flood waters overturned huge oil tanks. In a short time a 
section of the city three miles long and one-half mile wide was on fire. 
On January 25, the City Council gave City Manager Clarence A. 
Dykstra full power to rule the city during the emergency. Before the 
river started to drop from its 80-foot crest at Cincinnati, millions of 
dollars in property had been destroyed. 

The flood revealed a wonderful spirit of cooperation. The Red Cross 
was in general charge. It spent nearly one and a half million dollars 
on relief in Cincinnati and Hamilton County. At Music Hall was a 
supply depot where on some days as many as 100 thousand garments 
were distributed. Dry cleaning concerns volunteered their services. 
Three thousand Boy Scouts were on duty. The public schools were 
closed, and the teachers volunteered for relief work. The Cincinnati 
Board of Education offered school buildings to the Red Cross for use 
as refugee centers, where those driven from their homes could be fed 
and quartered. As a result of the 1937 flood experience the Board of 
Education has worked out a schedule of building facilities for any 
future emergency which may occur. 

After the flood had subsided, the Valley people tried to resume 
their work calmly. At the same time they began to ask, “What can be 
done about these floods? The next flood may be greater than this. The 
water may go to 90 or even 100 feet.” 

Floods cannot be controlled in a short time. They are started by 
melting snows and by heavy rains beating down upon the bare earth. 
This causes hundreds of small, muddy streams to race to the big rivers 
and pour water over the land. Nothing, of course, can keep the snows 
from melting or the rain from falling, but they would not be disastrous 
if many plants grew on the land drained by the rivers. Trees and grass 
would hold the land and soak up some of the rain; the rest would 
sink into the ground instead of running off. 

In order to control floods, it is necessary to replant the land. Gov¬ 
ernment workers and men in the agricultural experiment stations of 
the state colleges have been studying this problem for years. They have 


,33 


The Beautiful River 


encouraged farmers to plant trees and to cover their hillside fields 
with grass and clover, so that the soil will not be washed away. 

The forested state and national parks in the Ohio Valley keep a 
great deal of water from running off into the streams. Ohio alone has 
69 parks and forests covering 145,451 acres. Since people have become 
aware of their value, other such parks may be created. 

Although replanting the river banks helps prevent floods, many 
years will pass before this process shows large results. There are other, 
more immediate, ways of controlling floods. One is the construction of 
flood walls along the river. They are like the dikes of Holland, which 
keep the ocean from submerging the lowlands. Some Ohio cities have 
flood walls, but the 1937 flood was so great that in most places the 
water poured over the walls. This happened at Lunken Airport, in 
Cincinnati’s East End. The Little Miami River overflowed the landing 
field and went up into the second story of the new air terminal 
building. 

Army engineers, who have charge of all improvements on the Ohio 
River, have recommended the construction of a flood wall along the 
Cincinnati waterfront. Their plan is to make this wall high and strong 
enough to withstand future floods. 

Another proposed way of controlling floods is to construct locks 
and dams, regulating the height and swiftness of the river. After the 
1913 flood a series of retaining dams was built at a cost of $30,000,000 
along the most dangerous streams in the Great Miami Valley. The 
project proved its worth. In the record flood of 1937, it not only pro¬ 
tected the people along the upper Great Miami, but also gave refuge 
to hundreds of persons who fled from Cincinnati and other flooded 
areas. 

A combination of the various methods of controlling floods is being 
worked out in the Muskingum Valley in the eastern part of Ohio. Here 
the Government has built a series of 14 dams and storage reservoirs 
at a cost of $40,000,000. Besides, a huge area around each dam is being 
replanted and tended carefully. The region is already attracting tour¬ 
ists. Each year thousands of people come to swim, fish, boat on 
the lakes, camp in the forests, and look at the huge locks and dams 
in the Muskingum River. 

All these projects are designed to control the rivers and help pre¬ 
vent floods. H and when floods do come, however, there is another sort 
of work to be done. Many families will never forget the service of the 
Red Cross during the 1937 flood. Red Cross workers in every com¬ 
munity along the river gave food, clothing, and a place to sleep to 
thousands of people forced out of their homes by the water. 


34 


The Beautiful River 


The United States Coast Guard Service maintains at Louisville the 
only inland Coast Guard Station in the United States. Government cut¬ 
ters patrol the rivers and swing into action in case of accident, flood, 
or other emergency. They arc equipped with wireless and can radio 
boats near the trouble. 

In the Naval Militia of the United States Navy are young men be¬ 
tween 17 and 28 years old. They are not regular sailors; they are called 
out only for emergency river duty. In time of flood the Cincinnati 
unit rescues families marooned in flooded homes. 

The Sea Scouts, a branch of the Boy Scouts, are also of great help in 
critical times. During the 1937 flood they carried supplies and mes¬ 
sages. In ordinary times they learn water sports, river lore, and sea¬ 
manship. They cruise the Ohio and its tributaries in troop ships 
manned by a skipper, mate, and boatswain, and a crew of eight boys. 
Just as the Boy Scouts keep the way clear at parades and civic affairs, 
so the Sea Scouts assist during boat races and other river events. 


35 


® * « S 0 © ® 


A THOUSAND MILES OF HIGHWAY 


T HE 1870’s were great years for the river; it was merry with traffic. 
But something had happened. The railroads were building con¬ 
necting lines east and west, north and south. The Southern Rail¬ 
road and the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, the two roads which 
connected Cincinnati with the South, were soon carrying most of the 
traffic that at one time would have traveled the Ohio. 

The country no longer depended on steamboats for freight and 
travel, and the Ohio River was no longer considered one of the greatest 
natural resources of the Nation. Grass began to grow among the cobble¬ 
stones of the public landings. The shipyards were idle, and when a 
boat sank or grew too old for service it was not replaced. Fewer barges 
were coming down the canals, and even some of the canals themselves 
were being abandoned. 

Thus people along the Ohio River had another problem to solve. 
As they looked at the great muddy river passing their doors, they 
asked themselves, “What can be done to make the Ohio again a high¬ 
way of trade, astir once more with packets and barges?” 

Fortunately, a number of things could be done. About 1827 the 
Federal Government had begun to clear the river of stumps, sunken 
trees, and debris, that snagged ships and clogged the channel. But sand 
bars and ice and low water could still tie up shipping. 

It is true that freight and passengers had traveled the river for 
years, regardless of delays and river hazards. But that was before the 
coming of the railroads. The train was faster and safer than the steam¬ 
boat. The steamboat could not compete with the railroad train unless 
the river were improved. The Government had done some cleaning 
and dredging, but without deepening the channel enough. In 1896 
Congress authorized a survey of the Ohio down to Marietta, to learn 
if locks and dams could be built to advantage, but it was not until 
1908 that the survey was reported favorably. 

In the meantime, in 1907, towboats began a revival of freight traffic 
on the river. During that year the Sprague moved 60 barges, filled 
with 70,000 tons of coal, from Louisville to New Orleans. This was a 
new phase of river commerce, and it seemed to promise a return to 
the good old days of shipping. 


36 



Finally, in 1910, Congress passed a Rivers and Harbors Act author¬ 
izing the construction of dams from Pittsburgh to Cairo to maintain 
a water level of at least nine feet. Although a large amount of money 
was set aside, little work was done. 

Then the World War came. Trade and industry were good and the 
railroads were worked almost beyond capacity. Once more the river 
became important, especially for carrying bulky freight that the 
railroads could not take care of at the time. 

Barge fleets were already using the upper Ohio, where some locks 
and dams had been completed. The Ohio Valley Improvement Associa¬ 
tion renewed its efforts for construction of locks and dams on the rest 
of the Ohio, and in 1923 secured another appropriation from Congress. 
Under the supervision of the United States Army Engineers, 47 dams 
costing $121,000,000 were completed in October 1929. When the work 
was finished, Herbert Hoover, then President of the United States, 
went down the river. In Eden Park at Cincinnati he dedicated a monu¬ 
ment commemorating the completion of the dams. 

The Ohio had become a fine new river. Low water, the summer 
bane of the riverman, no longer kept boats idle, nor was ice a great 
danger in winter. Shipping was safer and cheaper. 

Since the War, sand and gravel for building purposes have been 
greatly in demand, and large quantities have been dredged from the 
river bed. Other important products carried by river boats are iron, 
steel, petroleum products, cement, lumber, and coal. Although other 


Courtesy of Paul Driol 


LOCK AND DAM 


37 


industries have moved away from the river, the coal yards of the river 
towns remain near the river bank. Cincinnati, which handles millions 
of tons of coal each year, is one of the greatest coal distributing points 
in the United States. 

Along with the revival of freight shipping on the Ohio has come 
an increase in passenger service. Of course people now travel the river 
not for business or through necessity, but for fun. They come from 
far places for a steamboat trip on a part of the 2,300 navigable miles 
of the Ohio and its tributaries. In February, passenger boats make the 
trip to New Orleans for the Mardi Gras. Throughout the summer there 
are regular passenger excursions to places all along the Ohio. The 
most popular trips are those of the Island Queen to and from Coney 
Island, the amusement park on Cincinnati’s eastern limits 10 miles 
up river from the Public Landing. 

Many people have gay times paddling and sailing canoes or small 
boats, and racing motorboats on the river. The motorboat races of the 
Ohio Valley Motor Boat Racing Association and the sailboat races of 
the Cincinnati Sailing Club take place before enthusiastic crowds who 
watch from the river banks and the bridges. The most exciting races 
on the river in recent years were those between the steamboats Betsy 
Ann and Chris Greene and Tom Greene . In the 21-mile race with 
the Chris Greene , in July 1928, the Betsy Ann lost by a quarter- 
mile. In a similar race with the Tom Greene the following summer, 
it lost by less than 35 feet. The next year the Tom Greene won un- 


Courtesy of American Airlines, Inc. 


NEW TRAFFIC 



The Beautiful River 


disputed supremacy of the river, outdistancing the Betsy Ann hy four 
miles over a 20-mile course. 

Footloose people live in houseboats or “shantyboats” all year round. 
They go up and down the river as the spirit moves them, and fish or 
gather mussel shells to sell to button manufacturers. In the summer 
and early fall they tie up their boats along the Ohio; then when winter 
approaches they cut loose from their mooring and float down river 
to the Mississippi and the warm South. Shantyboatmen are easy¬ 
going and happy, and find pleasure enough in tying up under a syca¬ 
more tree and lazing away the days on the deck of their boat with 
fishing line in the water. They live a carefree life. They have no rent 
to pay, and they can get enough to eat by fishing in the river or by 
visiting the truck gardens and cornfields of the river farmers. 

The shantyboat is usually a crudely built, flatbottomed boat with 
a cabin of clapboards and tin, and is something like the ark used by 
the pioneer except that the ark was much larger and heavier. 

Less than 20 years ago more than a thousand summer camps 
lay between New Richmond and Cincinnati. But the widening of the 
river slowed the current; the water became so foul from sewage that 
many fish died and it became necessary to pass an ordinance prohib¬ 
iting swimming in the river. However, people still camp in the wooded 
places on the Ohio, and along the hanks of the two Miamis, the Licking, 
and other streams. 

It is still possible to take a packet trip the full length of the Ohio— 
down the great sweeping curves of the river, past the mouths of the 
little rivers, and around the Ohio’s hundred green islands. Some of 
the islands are very small, less than a half-mile long. Most of them 
are lived on and farmed. Two of them, Buffington and Blennerhassett, 
are famous. At Buffington, in July 1863, a number of John Morgan’s 
raiders, who had dashed up from Kentucky to worry and plunder the 
towns of Indiana and Ohio, were surrounded by Union forces and 
captured. After it was all over, the soldiers were tired and dusty. The 
day was hot, and the water inviting. War was suddenly forgotten. Men 
of both sides threw off their uniforms and plunged gleefully into the 
river for a swim together. 

Around the other famous Ohio River island, Blennerhassett, centers 
the story of an Irish aristocrat and his beautiful wife. They bought 
170 acres of the island, built a house, planted crops, and pottered 
around in their formal gardens. They were happy on their island 
paradise until the day in 1805 when Aaron Burr came to tempt them. 
Burr lured Blennerhassett into giving him money for his dreamy plan 


39 


The Beautiful River 


of setting up an empire in the Southwest. The scheme failed, and late 
in 1806 President Jefferson ordered the arrest of Blennerhassett and 
Burr, charged with treason against the United States. After a court 
trial, they were freed. Blennerhassett’s troubles were not over. He had 
one misfortune after the other. A few years later, he died. 

People who have not lived with the river always ask why the Ohio 
is so celebrated for its beauty. Today, of course, it is not altogether 
La Belle Riviere marveled at by explorers and pioneers; people have 
changed its color and its uses. But it still flows in a pleasant valley 
among green and brown hills. From Pittsburgh to Cairo, for a thousand 
miles, it is still the beautiful river on its way to join the Mississippi 
and travel with it to the sea. 


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